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Discussion Do you agree with Jonathan Blow when he stated on air that "Zelda is fake puzzle".

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Jon Blow seems to be kind of an asshole for no reason at all times. I get where he's coming from, Zelda puzzles are fairly basic and require only the most simple pattern recognition, but that's called "easy", not "fake". It's like saying Kirby is a fake platformer.
 
Zelda puzzles are made to be challenging for children and teenagers. Which they probably are.
 
Vookatos said:
Jon Blow seems to be kind of an asshole for no reason at all times. I get where he's coming from, Zelda puzzles are fairly basic and require only the most simple pattern recognition, but that's called "easy", not "fake". It's like saying Kirby is a fake platformer.
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And to add to that that while Zelda puzzles are basic usually they take some time cause part of the puzzle is understanding the surroundings and the mechanisms in the room. It's a combo of exploring and solving the puzzle.
 
Vookatos said:
Jon Blow seems to be kind of an asshole for no reason at all times. I get where he's coming from, Zelda puzzles are fairly basic and require only the most simple pattern recognition, but that's called "easy", not "fake". It's like saying Kirby is a fake platformer.
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I don't know if I'm right, but I think the puzzles in the Legend of Zelda series were created largely based on intuition, especially BOTW and TOTK, in order to let the player know more about how to use the items, and therefore Zelda isn't a "logical puzzle" for Jonathan Blow.
 
I mean, we can look at the recently released Animal Well, how long has it been since Nintendo has been able to make such impressive gameplay and puzzle designs?
 
FIY Blow had a video where he was playing BOTW and pretend(?) to struggle at the very first magnesis puzzle, while bashing the game for being too easy.
For some reason Blow hates Nintendo with a passion so take everything he said about them with a grain of salt.
He's definitely a brilliant game creator, but brilliant people can be douchebags as well.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
I mean, we can look at the recently released Animal Well, how long has it been since Nintendo has been able to make such impressive gameplay and puzzle designs?
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The game is amazing, but I think you're kinda comparing apples and oranges here. Animal Well is designed to be fairly cryptic, with puzzles comprising the meat of its gameplay. Between combat, exploration, puzzles, and so on, Zelda's gameplay pillars are more multifaceted, so it makes sense that its puzzles wouldn't be as impressively designed as a game more narrowly focused on that particular area. Also, Zelda games are made with kids and teens in mind, as Danny mentioned further up, so there's a ceiling on how complex Nintendo is willing to make the puzzles.
 
I think it would be helpful to actually have the argument spelled out. Otherwise we're going to have to focus on Jonathan Blow's character which will be pretty uncharitable to Jonathan Blow.
 
Aurc said:
The game is amazing, but I think you're kinda comparing apples and oranges here. Animal Well is designed to be fairly cryptic, with puzzles comprising the meat of its gameplay. Between combat, exploration, puzzles, and so on, Zelda's gameplay pillars are more multifaceted, so it makes sense that its puzzles wouldn't be as impressively designed as a game more narrowly focused on that particular area. Also, Zelda games are made with kids and teens in mind, as Danny mentioned further up, so there's a ceiling on how complex Nintendo is willing to make them.
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So my problem is that Nintendo has always claimed that they value gameplay creativity above all else, yet haven't made enough progress in years, and TOTK has too many player-pleasing designs, which I don't think is a good thing for Zelda.
 
I wouldn't say he's wrong, but I also think that sort of criticism misses the point of what Zelda games are at their core to a massive degree.

Also Blow's games may have "solid" puzzle design but the feeling you get from them is that some insufferably twee hipster is constantly judging your ability to solve them.

Enpsty said:
He's definitely a brilliant game creator
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He's a good puzzle designer, but his overall games are... well, see above.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
I think it would be helpful to actually have the argument spelled out. Otherwise we're going to have to focus on Jonathan Blow's character which will be pretty uncharitable to Jonathan Blow.
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He didn't say much more than a comment that he hadn't played all of the Legend of Zelda series, but the BOTW and TOTK puzzles he thought were Fake Puzzle
 
Without seeing the full argument, I presume it's similar to the generic complaint that gaming "puzzles" often are "put obvious object A in slot A with picture of object A above it".

Which yes, that's a fake puzzle if you're comparing it to a sudoku or y'know, the fucking Witness, a game that navelgazes about line puzzles for the 17 hour runtime it has and works them in the environment in increasingly absurd ways.

It also avoids the question on if the "puzzle" was meant to be that kind of puzzle to begin with. With Zelda, I'd argue that kind of easy puzzle exists mostly to facilitate other gameplay challenges. Sometimes that's combat, sometimes it's "how good is your knowledge of the dungeon item". The Doom keycard system similarly is brain-dead easy but it facilitates doomguy moving between rooms to find new demons to shoot.

So, no, I don't agree because I think the framing is disingenuous.
 
I was legit not able to solve some of the shrines in TotK without going back to the web and google for it.

Fake or not, they're "puzzle" enough for me i'd say.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
I think it would be helpful to actually have the argument spelled out. Otherwise we're going to have to focus on Jonathan Blow's character which will be pretty uncharitable to Jonathan Blow.
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Yeah, the only response I had for the opening post was that it's a terrible opinion from a terrible person. I can only empathically disagree with him.

Aufhebung RPG said:
So my problem is that Nintendo has always claimed that they value gameplay creativity above all else, yet haven't made enough progress in years, and TOTK has too many player-pleasing designs, which I don't think is a good thing for Zelda.
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Sincerely, I do not see how you can see Nintendo's wide variety of games, with their respective mechanics, themes and styles, and say with a straight face that they do not value gameplay creativity.
 
Yeah, "fake puzzle" comes across as meaningless and it's difficult to know what's actually being argued here. Is he saying the puzzles are easy? That they're artificial or contrived?
Aufhebung RPG said:
So my problem is that Nintendo has always claimed that they value gameplay creativity above all else, yet haven't made enough progress in years, and TOTK has too many player-pleasing designs, which I don't think is a good thing for Zelda.
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You perhaps might want to give specific examples of what you mean so people have something clear to discuss. It's not clear what Blow's argument is, nor is it clear what you mean by "player pleasing designs" or "not enough progress".

But I think people have already addressed some of the fundamental points. Zelda is a series with a web of interconnected gameplay systems that wants to appeal to an all-ages audience. It isn't a game which places puzzles and puzzle-solving as the meat of its experience. Frankly Blow's "fake puzzle" phrase is meaningless without explanation and difficult to have a detailed conversation on that basis.
 
Also if anyone wants a very funny potshot at The Witness: Ultrakills 1-S made fun of it in a way that has to be... Witnessed (and by contrast won't take you several hours).

 
meatbag said:
Yeah, the only response I had for the opening post was that it's a terrible opinion from a terrible person. I can only empathically disagree with him.


Sincerely, I do not see how you can see Nintendo's wide variety of games, with their respective mechanics, themes and styles, and say with a straight face that they do not value gameplay creativity.
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I'm not complaining in any way about Nintendo's claims, I just think that perhaps the biggest gap between Nintendo and these indie game creators is that Nintendo deliberately reduces the depth of the very interesting gameplay they have at their disposal in order to curry favor with the majority of gamers.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
I just think that perhaps the biggest gap between Nintendo and these indie game creators is that Nintendo deliberately reduces the depth of the very interesting gameplay they have at their disposal in order to curry favor with the majority of gamers
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I disagree that Nintendo games lack depth. You need only check out the competitive scenes for Smash or Splatoon, or the intricacy of level design of Mario Odyssey, or the physics-based possibilities afforded by Tears of the Kingdom.

Rigid puzzle design is not the only method of adding depth to a game.
 
MisterSpo said:
Yeah, "fake puzzle" comes across as meaningless and it's difficult to know what's actually being argued here. Is he saying the puzzles are easy? That they're artificial or contrived?

You perhaps might want to give specific examples of what you mean so people have something clear to discuss. It's not clear what Blow's argument is, nor is it clear what you mean by "player pleasing designs" or "not enough progress".

But I think people have already addressed some of the fundamental points. Zelda is a series with a web of interconnected gameplay systems that wants to appeal to an all-ages audience. It isn't a game which places puzzles and puzzle-solving as the meat of its experience. Frankly Blow's "fake puzzle" phrase is meaningless without explanation and difficult to have a detailed conversation on that basis.
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I don't know if TOTK's ability to attack puzzles at will with a few simple methods counts as an example (fitting bombs and shields together or rockets with shields to be able to skip a very large number of puzzle designs. This would destroy the point of a lot of puzzle design; puzzles should make the player think, not be toys). , but even if you exclude TOTK's freer gameplay itself, 2017 BOTW's puzzle design was already considered very simple compared to the old Zelda, and TOTK went further to become even simpler.
 
There is something to be said and talked about... To bad it comes from Blow.


Blow looks at puzzles from a formal logic perspective.
Zelda more from a naturalistic perspective.

While you can express both in the way of the other (breaking it down to parameters and SAT solving it), the philosophy is different, and the goal in Zelda games is not to let the player be stuck for a while, but to habe a break between exploration and action to hold on for a moment and thing about a space instead of rushing through. It's the balance of those 3 gameplay aspects that's there, where none of them take over. (Nobody would talk up Zeldas combat as deep, compared to games that have deeper/harder combat systems.)

All that to come back to: blows opinion on so much other stuff is just bad.
 
meatbag said:
I disagree that Nintendo games lack depth. You need only check out the competitive scenes for Smash or Splatoon, or the intricacy of level design of Mario Odyssey, or the physics-based possibilities afforded by Tears of the Kingdom.

Rigid puzzle design is not the only method of adding depth to a game.
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There's a simple paradox here in that you think the rich gameplay TOTK offers based on its physics engine is a reflection of its depth, and I don't doubt that, but TOTK is still an action-adventure game, and all of its gameplay roots have to be backed up by sufficiently interesting level design, or else it's going to end up being a self-indulgent game in the same way that Minecraft is, but TOTK's level and puzzle design is a disappointment.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
This would destroy the point of a lot of puzzle design; puzzles should make the player think, not be toys
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That's only going by your personal notion of what a puzzle should be.

The puzzles in BotW/TotK were designed to allow out-of-the-box solutions. I've seen a lot of ingenuity from people experimenting with what's possible in these games.

Aufhebung RPG said:
TOTK's level and puzzle design is a disappointment
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I disagree, therefore I also disagree with Jonathan Blow.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
There's a simple paradox here in that you think the rich gameplay TOTK offers based on its physics engine is a reflection of its depth, and I don't doubt that, but TOTK is still an action-adventure game, and all of its gameplay roots have to be backed up by sufficiently interesting level design, or else it's going to end up being a self-indulgent game in the same way that Minecraft is, but TOTK's level and puzzle design is a disappointment.
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Not it's not.
 
No idea what he means by ‘fake puzzle’ 🤷🏻‍♂️ Is it only considered a true puzzle now if we have to break out the pen & paper or something….? Zelda’s puzzles have never become that intense I guess but there has been plenty of moments throughout the series that completely stumped me - i remember solving the ancient cistern in skyward sword on the Wii felt pretty rewarding.
 
Having reading this thread so far, this feels more like it was made to rant about Zelda's puzzle design under a veil of "famous person said this. What do you think?" I can't say it's an honest thread
 
Enpsty said:
Not it's not.
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My argument is that too much freedom to interact with abilities and items completely undermines the point of puzzle design, and if a puzzle allows the player to break it any way they want then it's a classic "fake puzzle", and Nintendo doesn't want the player to get stuck or offended, so the puzzles in TOTK were designed to please the player, but as a game design they failed.
 
lilod said:
I don't view zelda as a puzzle game at all
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This. They're action-adventure games with puzzles that serve as breaks in combat and exploration.

I think the way BOTW and TOTK handle them, as opportunities for experimentation with the game's mechanics is fine. There's still an 'intended' way to do the puzzles but I don't think the ability to creatively bypass this makes them fake or even bad.
 
"Fake" is a harsh and unnecessary word but maybe I can understand where he is coming from.

Puzzles in a Zelda game work in the same style an enemy from Mario is not hard to defeat. Unless this Doctre also believes Mario enemies are fake challenges, maybe he meant the design is just there to keep you occupied rather than challenged.

It's a very conscious choice especially if the target audience is as wide as it is. I tried Animal well, I deleted the game after an hour or so, it was not the challenge I was looking for at that time.

Nintendo will always try to keep accessibility maintained as a priority.
 
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look it's real simple:

-Zelda games: FAKE puzzles for FAKE gamers

-Figuring out how to sort game search results on the PlayStation store: REAL puzzle for REAL gamers
 
BotW and TotK are incredibly clever and fascinating to dissect on a gameplay level. a very disappointing take honestly.
 
ILikeFeet said:
Having reading this thread so far, this feels more like it was made to rant about Zelda's puzzle design under a veil of "famous person said this. What do you think?" I can't say it's an honest thread
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I'll be honest and say that I have a problem with TOTK's puzzle design because it loses the thoughtfulness of "puzzle solving".
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
My argument is that too much freedom to interact with abilities and items completely undermines the point of puzzle design, and if a puzzle allows the player to break it any way they want then it's a classic "fake puzzle", and Nintendo doesn't want the player to get stuck or offended, so the puzzles in TOTK were designed to please the player, but as a game design they failed.
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A puzzle having multiple solutions or enabling player ingenuity to solve it in ways other than the developer mandated solution doesn't make them less puzzle like, it's the opposite.

The point of the puzzles in BOTW and TOTK is to challenge the player to clear a room however they see fit with the tools they were given. The same as something like Baba is you, where almost every puzzle room has multiple solutions, some significantly easier than others, and some weren't even intended by the developer.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
My argument is that too much freedom to interact with abilities and items completely undermines the point of puzzle design, and if a puzzle allows the player to break it any way they want then it's a classic "fake puzzle", and Nintendo doesn't want the player to get stuck or offended, so the puzzles in TOTK were designed to please the player, but as a game design they failed.
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That's like saying sequence breaking in a metroidvania game undermines the level design of the game.

TOTK puzzles have a "correct" way to solve them while giving you the option to break them if you're creative enough. So they work both ways. And imo most great puzzles have something similar. For example I broke many puzzles in Talos Principle in a weird way. That didn't take away the brilliance of the puzzles themselves.

IMO TOTK puzzles are brilliant because you can solve them either with the obvious way or simply go wild.
 
Is he not a native English speaker? Genuine question, I have no idea. To me the statement implies that Zelda games fail at what they attempt to do, or even misrepresent themselves as puzzle games. That seems silly. Maybe they don't deliver the sort of puzzles this guy likes but who really cares. They sell 30 million copies because people like them.
 
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